


Blood Money

by Akingrecitinghamlet



Category: Frontier (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-08 02:53:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13449000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akingrecitinghamlet/pseuds/Akingrecitinghamlet
Summary: Cobbs Pond and Samuel Grant have spent more years than some get in a lifetime together. It’s true what they say about how some things never change.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A strange, haphazard imagining of what Samuel Grant and Cobbs Pond's past might have been like.   
> Huge thanks to tumblr user @littledozerbaby for their inspiring art and general awesomeness and tumblr user @alighiery for their encouragement and patience.   
> Come find me and send me Samuel Grant/Cobbs Pond talk, headcanons, and prompts on tumblr @akingrecitinghamlet !!!

 

  
 _To whom all comfort is a dream;_  
 _Cold is likely a bright shadow,_  
 _Heat a darkened sigh,_  
 _Art a vivid delusion,_  
 _Love a distorted ‘mine’._

* * *

  
    Mr. Grant smiles at the thin blue line of the horizon, which at this point has been changing hues with the rising sun to settle into a steady shade of bruised-knuckles blue. Mr. Pond is not watching the horizon.  
    "Not a bad morning." Mr. Grant says it almost admiringly, but to the shock of their companions, Mr. Pond laughs as if it were a joke. It's a silent laugh, marked only by a sharp exhale through his nose.  
    They have been traveling alongside these hired voyagers for three days now, down river. On their way to a trading post for business interests, they have another, longer journey onto Montreal ahead. The sun glints mercilessly off the water. Around them, men row. The trappers have learned not to assume their gossip cannot be understood by the American pair.   
    Every conversation they have in English is to each other, and half of the ones in French might as well be, for all their subtle smiles and glances. Mr. Grant eyes the horizon with the easy calm of a tourist, masking his watchful disposition with grace. Mr. Pond is more open about his intentions, but his gaze keeps wandering. He keeps listening to the wildlife and watches Grant watch the scenery go by.   
    This is a trip down memory lane. They will not return here for quite some time. Perhaps they may never return, if things go particularly well or especially wrong, and Samuel Grant and Cobbs Pond have quite a lot to remember. Younger men went into the valley looking for riches than came out. Pond breathes in the scent through his nose and Grant watches light pass over the water.  
  
    “I’ve heard of you.”  
    These are the first words he ever speaks to Cobbs.   
    Cobbs Pond walks out of the woods surrounding the Hudson, emerging from the dour greenery as if coming into being fully-formed, and greets him with a little bow. His every move is economical and polite, clearly practiced. Still, there’s something around the eyes, something almost feral. When he smiles he bares too many teeth.   
    Samuel already knows he’s been watching their traveling party for days- it shows in the sureness of his step, in the way he doesn’t fail to make and keep unwavering eye contact, in the steady, practiced sound of every word that leaves his mouth. He’s been rehearsing, Samuel thinks, and it’s almost a charming thought. How long has it been since he’s had company out in these woods?  
    “Cobbs Pond.” The man offers his hand and Samuel takes it. The voice is sweet like rosewater, the hand worn smooth with work. Samuel decides not to think about what kind of work. “A pleasure to meet you.”  
    He hadn’t expected a noted killer to be so dainty.  
  
    It is the carefully constructed bonds he forges which get him out of Kentucky.   
    What a man without money still has is his charm and his wit, and young Samuel is not lacking in either. He doesn’t sit in the collecting dust of an empty, abandoned home, devoid of life. He cannot- the wooden construction that has been his whole world is sold by the authorities to cover for his mother’s burial, to account for legal fees, and so those who might take him in could have the chance to pocket the rest. Still, hunger makes him agreeable. A solemn child with a distant, introspective face that brightens when he smiles- it takes time, but he makes politeness and unassuming grace a survival tactic.  
    He leaves the care of those who he won with pity as a boy into the arms of those he's conjured respect from with practiced skill. His choice of words is artful. He secures himself passage away from the sweet, hot hell that birthed him.  
    When he wanders into the woods of the Hudson Valley, it's not as a trapper but a man of business. He's an attache to a party which includes the son of the company's founder, a young man he's since befriended who couldn't have understood Samuel's thoughts and proclivities if he tried, but who has an affinity for collecting around him the bright and hardworking. It's not the largest company, nor the most successful, and that suits Samuel fine.   
    He watches the river and not the boy, Arthur Haynes, whose money he would very much like to spend. He knows that this will be noticed. When Arthur announces, in the dim light of dusk, that he enjoys his company, Samuel is not in the least surprised.  
    "The others are always looking for me to drop coin their way." The youth rubs his nose clean with the back of his hand. His eyes are sharp with uncomfortable sincerity. "You know you'd make it either way without me, Grant. Hell, I know you would. That's why we're friends, isn't it? Because we can be."  
Samuel says nothing, but smiles.  
    "That's why I want you to come with me to visit my father in New York. There's got to be more you can do than keep books for the rest of your life."  
Samuel gives him a strange look and embraces him. "Thank you." He says, very softly. It's the right move to make, even if it makes Samuel uncomfortable. He can feel the breathing slow in the chest pressed against him. They part quickly, but the young man is satisfied with his choice.  
    “It’ll be good to have you with me.” He grins.  
    Samuel tries to not think about how utterly alone those words make him feel.  
  
    Years later, he seeks out Cobbs Pond when the time is right for the help he knows he can provide. How easily convinced Cobbs is surprises him. It is not something Samuel has to try at. The whole thing takes on a natural feeling, as if they had always intended to carry out this plot of his, as if the plan had long since been agreed upon. As they float downriver, Cobbs Pond’s movements and sentences take on the quality of a man who fancies he might be dreaming.   
    "I fought in the American war, you know.” Small words, said in passing, likely meant to be ignored. Birds chirp louder than Cobbs Pond speaks.  
    "I bet you looked rather dashing in uniform." Samuel smiles. It’s a foolish thing to say, but something keeps him from berating himself about it, keeps him comfortable.  
    Cobbs feels the tips of his ears burn in a most satisfying way. "I hope you would have thought so."

    “Arthur.” Samuel calls to the rich man’s son when the boy’s had one too many to drink. “You’ll drown yourself in it before dinner if you don’t stop now.”  
    Arthur smiles guilty, a bit abashed. He goes to taverns hungry for girls. It’s taken a year for the two of them to become close enough for Samuel to be invited along. It is here he learns to nod and smile, to say things like ‘a fine-looking woman’. One more reason he’s become so close with Arthur so quickly- he’s never any competition.   
    Samuel never takes him aside and says ‘this one is not for you, this one is mine’. It’s important for the heir of a small fur trading company not to feel penned in by his compatriots.  
    Arthur has light-auburn hair that shows when it’s dirty. He looks decent when he smiles, Samuel thinks, though it might be the kindness the man has shown him that makes him think so. Samuel politely defers to him in all things- the best whiskey, the best fashions, who is an insipid fool.   
    “That one?” He pronounces shyly, as Arthur watches him select a coat. Friends of rich men must look the part, after all. Samuel finds himself nervous he’s enjoying this too much- Arthur must think him dull, or worse, awfully silly. They’ve been trying on different articles of clothing for hours.  
    “Definitely.” Arthur nods sagely. “You’ve got a good eye. Now, a few more clean shirts and we’ll have you ready for the trip looking like one of the most eligible bachelors in New York. Besides me, of course.” He grins.  
    “I’ll be too busy reading over finance papers to be casting any shadows, not to worry.” Samuel smiles, all grace.   
    “You’d better be. Lord knows my father will want to know what I think of the books, and you’ll have to tell me what I think this time. I’m not risking that again.” Arthur massages his temples with one hand. “I swear, Grant, I don’t think there’s much worse than reading. Why would anyone want me to waste my time cooped up, smothering myself with a book when I could be out making a real difference in the trade? It’s the money that matters, not all the little numbers.”  
    Samuel says nothing. He pretends he is too busy examining his reflection to hear. In truth, he thinks, there is something to be said for all this; rich fabric feeds a strange hunger in him, one less for sustenance and more for decadence. He knows now he wants to do more than simply survive.  
    “Grant, did you even hear me?”  
    “Hmm?”  
    “I said all that paper stuff is terrible.”  
    “That’s what you have me for, isn’t it?” He smiles, more at himself in the looking glass than at Arthur standing a good foot behind him. “For all the fine print and book-balancing and when you need the odd bit of poetry quoted for a girl.”  
    “Now now, don’t sell yourself short.” It’s a sharp, barking, uncomfortable laugh. “I know you don’t mean it, Grant, but you’ve got a bad habit of making everything sound so clinical.”  
    “I’m sorry.”  
    “It’s alright.” Arthur’s hand finds his shoulder and Samuel nearly bites through his own tongue in shock and discomfort. “We’re friends, after all.”  
  
    There are far cleverer women in this world than Arthur will ever be, Samuel thinks, watching with a kind of sideways glee as barmaids pick Arthur’s pockets and talk circles around his love-drunk head. Sometimes, when they take too much, Samuel reaches out a hand to stop them. He makes sure Arthur sees him do it. He likes the feeling he gets when Arthur looks at him, grateful.  
    “You’re a good friend, Grant.” Arthur bursts out three months after he’s finally been allowed to join their little skirt-chasing escapades, a little tipsy. He’s a sentimental sort and alcohol doesn’t calm him the way it does Samuel. “That’s why my father likes you, you know. You look after me.”  
    Samuel knows this is not the time or the place to tell him that his father actually thinks he’s a swindler and an upstart who should have been left to rot in Kentucky, and that they really ought to do something before his vague annoyance boils over into actual action. Instead, he tentatively threads his arm around Arthur’s shoulders with all the deep, primal discomfort and guiding grace of the blind leading the blind.   
    “Don’t you forget it now.” He laughs. The pit in his stomach is only growing deeper. There’s something all of Arthur’s kindness and affection cannot fill.  
  
    By age six he is an orphan in Kentucky, staring at the bloodied ground that marks the spot where his baby brother's head once laid. He does not tell the story as any kind of emotional ploy, and yet Cobbs says 'what difficulties you have endured' in that soft way of his, like lukewarm bath water. This Samuel does not expect. He blinks at him.  
    "What?"  
    "It must have been difficult for you." There is none of his characteristic mocking delight in his tone, only something like remorse. His brows are raised in the first sign of pure concern Samuel has ever seen the man wear.   
    "I suppose it was." Samuel's gaze seems a bit distracted now, less present, as if he is trying to peer through river fog. Cobbs watches him drift farther away and settles a hand on his shoulder. He has never dared to reach out and touch him before.  
    Samuel looks at without flinching. He does not say what he sees.  
  
    Everything is such an awful blur. The trip up to New York, the trip back, the ugly way Arthur’s father’s bookkeeper looked at him once he knew who he was, the vague disdain, the caustic threat of dethronement from another fortune-seeker, this one hand-picked by the father himself- the way the whole world seemed to threaten to swallow him whole. He’d spent a long night in his rented room, alone, the door sturdily locked and without the candles lit, weeping at the thought of being forcefully shipped back to wherever they thought they would get rid of him, whiskey he couldn't afford by himself making him sick to his stomach, visions of his mother’s face and the clear, haunting pitch of his brother’s cries ringing in his ears.  
    He can almost hear Cobbs Pond as well, warm arms enveloping his tired body, voice like the trickle of a stream. “You shouldn’t have gone alone.” He says, they way he knew he would. “You should have brought me with you.”  
    He falls asleep like that, red-eyed and lonely, and wakes the next morning with a plan.  
  
    They bring him a razor and water to wash with, unscented soap so he can clean without marking himself to the wildlife. Cobbs holds the straight razor to his own cheek.  
    “What do you think?” He asks.  
    Samuel, unsure that it has anything to do with him, shrugs. “Keep it. It makes you look...” He’s trying to find the right word.  
    Cobbs watches him intently, close-lipped.  
    “Formidable.”  
    Cobbs smiles.  
  
    “I just wish he’d leave me alone.” Arthur fumes quietly in the back of the room.  
    Two years have told Samuel that his rival fortune-hunter isn’t going anywhere. Samuel wonders what it feels like to be chosen by a father for success. He knows it’s only a matter of time before he’s elbowed out, Arthur be damned. His father will call for him, and Arthur will not be able to resist, and Samuel will be left here, fenced out from wealth and friendship by the slow persuasion of time and distance.   
    “Your father-” He begins calmly.  
    “Fuck my father.” Arthur’s blood, impotent as it is, runs hot. “The whole company is basically mine anyway. The man never leaves New York. He can drop dead for all I care.”  
    “Fair enough.” Samuel shrugs. The fortune-seeker is his own problem. Let Arthur take care of the larger issues himself. Less damning that way, really.  
    He downs drinks Arthur has paid for and leaves the tavern to wait.  
  
    "He's being obnoxiously stubborn."  
    At his words Cobbs flashes him a rather pleased smile, like a cat who has just bitten into the backbone of a particularly stubborn rat. The look, as might a rat, falls to Samuel's feet, heavy with meaning.  
    "Not tonight."  
    There is a pleasing sensation that comes to them both as their eyes meet in the darkness, their slim faces lit up and then shadowed by the fickleness of firelight.   
    "You know, Mr. Grant, I am beginning to find you quite exciting."  
    "Only beginning?" He laughs.  
    It's that kind of confidence that keeps Cobbs up at night.     
  
    Samuel recalls, once the struggle was over and the upstart was dead, coming down with an ugly fever. He hadn’t wanted to see it happen, hadn’t wanted to know, intimately, that his rival would not rise from the earth. The sickness held out in him for four days.  
    Sweating through his sheets, he knew half of it was nightmares, the kind of skull-haunting visions of death and decay that had fueled his late mother’s paranoia. The other half, Cobbs explains, is an infection. In the fragile darkness, he doesn’t know what he sees. Cobbs Pond sits by his bedside and brings water to his lips when he wakes.  
    “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” His voice is quiet and Samuel is grateful- loud noises hurt his head and fill his mind with fear. “I didn’t think…” He looks vaguely distracted, guilty, as if he’s finally connected the symptoms and strain to the reasons why. “No matter. Just focus on getting well. It’s going to be alright, I promise.”  
    
    He’s clear-headed quickly enough, but Cobbs doesn’t stop reading him poetry and bringing him food and helping him dress just because the fever’s stopped. In fact, he never does. He only explains, years later, what Samuel already knows- it was never about illness or delicacy in the first place.  
    “Where’s-”  
    “Your coat? I’ve got it locked in the wardrobe.” Cobbs smiles at him, full of calm delight. “That way no one else could get their hands on it.”  
    “And my-”  
    “You had money in the pockets, I know. That’s locked up in the desk with the rest of your funds.”  
    “I’m sorry to have troubled you like this.” Samuel means to concentrate on looking shamefaced, the way part of him feels, but he can’t help but marvel at how his devoted caretaker has overlooked nothing.  
    “You don’t have to apologize.” Cobbs pronounces sweetly. “There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.”  
    Samuel looks up, expecting to read the joke written in his expression, and instead finds only care and sincerity. He’s been lying for so long there’s something blinding about looking into the eyes of truth.   
    “Just try and rest, Mr. Grant. I’ll take care of everything.”

    Arthur is delighted to see him again when he arises, feeling somehow stronger, from his lengthy sickbed stay.  
    The man’s full of words when they meet, explosive with news. “My father- that is- I went to see my father. And he said I spend too much time with the tribes, and that I needed to spend some time in New York and find myself a wife.” Arthur cocks his head back and laughs, though not for the reasons Samuel might. “I told him I wanted to stay with the company and that I wanted to marry a native girl- better for trade anyway, and who wants a snotty New York bitch?” He sneers with the comfort of a man who is used to being agreed with. “He tried to tell me no, so I did something about it.”  
    The two are quiet for a moment. Samuel tries not to shut his eyes, expecting the worst.  
    Arthur takes him by the shoulders and Samuel nearly flinches. “The men sided with me, Grant. They chose me over him. I made the play and it worked- the company’s mine now.”  
    Samuel stares at him, dazed. “What do you mean?”  
    “What I mean is you don’t have to worry anymore.”  
    Samuel does close his eyes now. It’s something between a wish and a prayer- oh please, that it would only be that simple. Please.  
  
    The memories blur.  
    Cobbs Pond on his back, in a bed or elsewhere, a smile that's entirely teeth, a lolling head. A laugh born on the tip of his tongue. It's feral and divine.   
    Samuel Grant, whose mouth is raw from drink, moves over him as if to kiss him. New York cold shudders between them in their breath, and even now this isn't as new as it feels. An agonizing courtship of two bastards. He's bruised a knee.   
    Cobbs’s eyes watch him, gleaming in the darkness, like the eyes of owls. He looks up at him delighted and a fit of giggles breaks over him. He's a punctured casket of wine, overflowing richly and red. His bottom lip is swollen from an off-color bite, which, as Samuel has already remarked, looks striking. He's flattered sick.  
    "Who would have thought?" That soft voice, like a whisper of smoke, dares not to call too much attention to itself. A fragile hope. "Who would have thought that Mr. Samuel Grant-"  
    This is part of the test. Samuel knows. He's been a lonely, frightened boy with a love of men too, he almost says, he knows what it is that they're doing. If he lets him finish his sentence, if he doesn't kiss or otherwise silence him, the damning words will be spoken.   
    "-That Samuel Grant would care to go to bed with a boy like me.”  
    It's a statement in and of itself. He lets the words hang in the air and he smiles. “I couldn’t imagine better if I cared to.”  
    Cobbs kisses him. Really kisses him. With knowing reverence Cobbs leans upward into him deeply and runs a hand through his hair. He gently, centimeter by centimeter, wraps his legs around Samuel’s hips.  
    “I’d do anything for you- you know that, don’t you.” Cobbs says it when their lips part like it’s something a whore might say, but Samuel knows he means it. He means it in the great and terrible way only Cobbs Pond can. The weight in his words makes Samuel’s blood run cold, then burn.   
    “I’d do anything you asked.”  
  
    “Who's this?” Arthur raises an eyebrow as he walks in from the rain, locating Samuel’s spot in the back of the tavern. Odd words coming from a man who hasn’t spoken to him in a week, but not entirely unexpected.  
    “Ah, yes, I see you’ve noticed my associate here.” Samuel smiles at Arthur the same way he always has, only it likely seems a good bit more transparent than it ever did when they were boys. He’s been sitting warm and dry for an hour. “This is Mr. Pond. I thought he might act as a bit of a mediator between the two of us, calm our heads.”  
    Arthur sits. “And what hole exactly did you drag this trapper out from, Grant?”  
    Samuel is quick to open his mouth with an answer and a sharp, protective glance at Cobbs, but Cobbs gives a slight bow of a nod instead. “Mr. Grant and I met some years back while traveling, Mr. Haynes.” He holds out his hand carefully, and the richer man shakes it.  
    “I assume he’s given your friendship with him the same dishonest care he’s given mine.” Arthur snorts. “One minute he’s for you, the next minute against, Mr. Pond. Don’t say you weren’t warned.”  
    Samuel can feel his cheeks burn, and not from the whiskey.  
    “Oh, I think I’ll handle him fine.” Cobbs pronounces it with all the sweet cordiality his voice can muster, but he smiles for a fraction of a second in an eager way Samuel remembers very clearly. It reminds him to be confident- he has the upper hand.  
    “It’s our relationship that needs discussing, Arthur.” He chides. “I want to put this misunderstanding behind us.”  
    “Not much to misunderstand.” Arthur’s eyes narrow. “You think I’m mismanaging the business.”  
    “I know it can’t be easy to hear that-”  
    “Easy? Fucking easy? I never expected this from you, Grant. I always figured our friendship was stronger than greed."  
“I wish it was just greed, Arthur, I really do. Greed I could ignore. But in truth I’m worried about you.” Samuel makes a point of sighing heavily. “I don’t want to see you throw away everything you worked so hard for.”  
    Arthur is sullen in silence.  
    “I was there, you know, from the beginning. I know how hard you worked. Your father-”  
    “Don’t bring him into this.”  
    Samuel blinks for a minute. It’s become baffling to him that the man from which he’d learned his fine manners could be so much more rude and tawdry than him. Had Arthur always been like this, and he just hadn’t had the sense to see it? Had he really outgrown him in five years time?  
    Cobbs shoots him a glance, and Samuel continues. “I won’t, Arthur. I just want you to understand, I’m trying to help.”  
    “Sure you are. Helping yourself.”  
    “I wish you wouldn’t-”  
    “Quit playing games with me, Grant.”  
    He blinks again. He can almost feel Cobbs Pond tense in the seat next to him.  
    “Alright, I won’t play games, Arthur. I know you don’t think I have your best interest at heart, but you deserve honesty. Maybe being straightforward with you, no matter how painful, will show you I care more about you than any greed you now believe has motivated my actions. I respect you too much to shield you for my own benefit.”  
    Arthur frowns. This was not what he had expected.  
    “I know you have been working hard on forming agreements with several other companies throughout the valley. You’ve met with tribal delegations and company heads alike trying to forge ahead, as have I. We’ve worked on advancing together.” Samuel let himself breath for a moment and then let himself savor his next words. “But Arthur, believe me when I say you are single-handedly poisoning our trade relations. You can’t just make offers without my say-so. When you aren’t sure what we can and can’t offer and don’t know which side we’re on, you make more enemies than friends.”  
    Arthur turns the color of his insides. “We’re on our own side, you self-centered little prick. I’m on my side.”  
    “So am I.”  
    “Not anymore.” Arthur stands. “I’m writing you out. You are no longer my beneficiary.”   
    “You what?” Samuel’s feels the color drain from his face. “Who knows about this?”  
    “I wasn’t sure until now- I decided I was coming here tonight to make up my mind. But damn, if seeing you like this, sitting here as bold as brass trying to tell me how to run my company doesn’t sell me on it, I don’t know what will. Goodbye, Grant.” Arthur sneered. “I’d say it’s been a pleasure but I wouldn’t want to give you the satisfaction.”  
    Samuel stares at him emptily. He watches five years of hard work and friendship walk out into the inky black.  
    It only takes a little while for Cobbs Pond to find him.   
  
    Arthur Haynes’s legal representation has, upon the burial of the deceased, no trouble finding the necessary paperwork for the transfer of company ownership. It’s all sitting neatly on top of his desk, in fact, as if placed there to be ready and waiting.   
  
    It’s all delirium once Arthur is gone. The company is renamed to their taste, soon growing to overshadow anything it might have been. For the first time, Samuel and Cobbs have nothing to consider but themselves.   
    The memories from this point on are sweeter. A honeymoon- a half-joke that, once told, fast becomes a fact. It’s not the first step they’d taken in their life together, Samuel agrees with Cobbs in hindsight, but the time they’d spent luxuriating in the sum of their choices. A brief crime ten years or more ago gave them the space in which to become comfortable. When they make their way towards Montreal, it’s in silent reassurance.  


* * *

 

 


	2. Red Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cobbs Pond remembers as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A strange, haphazard imagining of what Cobbs Pond's recollections of the past might be like.   
> Amazing thanks to tumblr user @alighiery for giving me the amazing challenge to write more in this fic from Pond's point of view! As always, huge shout out to @littledozerbaby for being a constant inspiration to me. Also @delectxre and Tveckling, who not only made my week with their amazing feedback, but helped to fuel this peice as well. You guys are so awesome.  
> Everyone please feel free to come find me and send me Samuel Grant/Cobbs Pond talk, headcanons, and prompts on tumblr @akingrecitinghamlet !!!

 

* * *

 

   Cobbs Pond walks out of the woods for Samuel Grant.   
   This Grant is not blind to.   
   When he joins their camp he sleeps where they sleep and eats when they eat and walks with them through the woods with a silence the most experienced among their voyagers cannot match. He outpaces them. This does not cure him like he had intended. That which first twisted in him like a sinew being pulled taut and aching only grows when he had expected it to weaken.   
   “I had a strange dream,” Grant looks out towards the bank of the river with a knotted brow and an interest in sparking simple conversation before the sun has fully risen. He has been working his way into Pond’s mind since they met, often with great purpose. “Do you ever have nightmares?”   
  “Not lately.” He answers, and Grant looks at him out of the corner of his eye and does not ask what has changed, or what he dreams of now.   
  Pond can feel the desire welling up behind his teeth, holding him fast, coating his sleep. He knows Grant sees and recognizes it for what it is, not as an outsider might, but as one privy to the emotional secrets of men with similar cravings. He watches Grant and he knows.   
   There's an easy similarity they carry, behind Grant's hooded eyes.

  “I’ve heard of you.”   
  What great and terrible words. First words. He’s got knowing eyes as well- eyes that know he’s practiced the slight, little bow he’s just given, eyes that know that the words he says have been long-rehearsed.   
  He meets Pond’s gaze and takes his hand when he offers it.   
  “Samuel Grant.” He nods. “The pleasure is all mine.”   
  The thin, piercing sound of chirping birds suddenly seems unwelcome and discomforting.   
  “I came across your encampment several days ago.” Pond digs one boot into the underbrush. There’s no point in lying to a man like this.   
  A teasing, unassuming smile which he is clearly full aware is charming. “I’m glad your curiosity finally caused you to pay us a visit.”   
  He wishes he could say ‘as am I’ but it is caught on his tongue and Samuel Grant is too quick for him to spit it up in time. He’s unused to the pace of real conversation.   
 “You’re full welcome to our hospitality.” Grant gestures him inward, into camp and into further association, the kind of sweeping gesture Pond tells himself he could make if he tried.   
  “Thank you.” He nods and steps forward willingly.

  They stay as long as they can. Grant doesn't say so, but it's clear in the little ways Pond watches their stores dwindle and the unconcerned looks Grant keeps giving to the grumbling voyagers whose boredom refuses to interest him. He doesn't need fine clothes, Pond thinks, to prove he walks a full height above them.   
  Samuel Grant’s inevitable leaving is a raw sore in his mind. Thinking on it only rubs it redder. By the time it is too late, it is an open wound.   
  He goes to Arthur Haynes like the wind has simply changed direction, as if he is being called by a whirling storm which captures his sails, not demanded to return by a petulant heir. He prepares to step into the boat and become the dutiful, meek, ever-smiling figure Arthur calls Grant again.   
  There’s a bitter and unspoken curse burning in Pond’s mouth, alive like embers. Tastes like eating rot. Samuel can make everything seem graceful and well-desired, he thinks, even a trip to New York to be flayed alive.   
  “You look as though you don’t trust him.” Grant smiles, demure. “I assure you, Arthur will have me back in one piece, and once I’ve returned to this part of the country I can share with you some real plans.”   
  “I look forward to it.” He murmurs. It is the best he can do. The sun is almost rising, and soon the voyagers will be preparing for their damnable departure. He has a picture in his mind of a row of low boats spilling over their smoke into the sky, wooden bodies coming apart in the spidery fingers of flames. He wishes it were a joke he could make, to cut through whatever is glueing his gaze to the ground. Instead, he scrapes with the toe of his shoe at the wilting leaves that stick wetly to the tops of the tree roots at his feet, sullen and lifeless in the morning dew. It only makes a dull, useless sound, the first footstep of his Grant has ever heard- he stares at him in open surprise. The leaves don’t even scatter appropriately.   
  He’s left by the bank, alone to wave at the retreating invaders until they are but a mud-colored spot on the horizon. They take their warm fires with them, and all their fine words, and he reminds himself softly of how much easier it will be to keep his vision in the evenings without their bright lantern lights flashing along the river to overwhelm his senses.   
  It is very easy to sit and see well in the dark, alone.   
  
   He skins rabbits in the dark.    
   It is, after all, easier to see with their lanterns and campfires gone. It was a bit past sunset when the snare went off- still pink in the sky. Easy enough to pull the pelt from the meat in one fell swoop after a few careful incisions, even just by feel. He could do this even if it was darker, he thinks. Black at pitch, with fog.    
   He hums as he works. Softly. There's two more to go under the knife. Wet, warm flesh molds around his fingertips. In the dark, it should be oddly comforting- it usually is. There's a hollow feeling, even as the dying embers jump to greet him. But the death in his hands fails to satisfy, even when his belly is full.   
  He picks the stringy bits from his teeth with the bones and listens for footsteps that won't fall.

  Samuel Grant has needs. Cobbs likes the way that Samuel tells him about them. They are the sorts of things he has been waiting a very long time to hear.  
  He needs someone removed from the picture. He needs to tell a close ally that he didn’t just come here from a life of good fortune. He needs peace and quiet, and the voyagers won’t stop their infernal babbling. He needs a good night's rest, free from bad dreams.  
  It already takes so little time, he thinks, to find solutions to the ones he is gifted enough to know about. Someone taken care of? Easy. The explanation of where Samuel came from? A joy and an honor to listen to. The babbling of the voyagers? A well-placed look and silence reigns. Bad dreams? Well, he’s got more than a dozen cures for that, and the least interesting among them is whiskey.    
  Cobbs Pond imagines there are other needs he doesn’t hear about. He likes imagining them, imagining what he would do to suit them, if he were given the chance.  
  He lays on his back and stares up into the cloth roof above his head like the dead do and pictures what he might say and do. It is very important that he pictures these things in detail, or else he might not get it right. That way, he can be sure that when Samuel asks him for help, tells him what else he needs, he can smile back at him just as charmingly as Samuel always does. That way he can say ‘of course’ and ‘leave it to me’ with all these ease of someone whose purpose it is to do so.  
   He smiles, baring his teeth in that soft, appropriate way he has seen others do time and time again, up at the unfeeling cloth of the tent above his head. Sometimes these little things slip out, and all the practice shows, but he doesn’t think Samuel minds.  
  He thinks about the ways he might take Samuel’s coat, if he had the chance. He pictures how it might be handed to him, carefully and yet unthinkingly, with the kind of simple grace which Samuel carries in his every limb. He imagines how it might feel, in that fraction of a second, to be so close and yet not touching. How comfortable Samuel, whose flesh crawls at the approach of others, must feel to be so free with him. It’s a silly thought, he knows, but then he has always been a romantic. Hopelessly thinking of the proper way to help a man undress.  
  Practice well enough at the mundane little actions in life, and he might eventually find himself needed.  
  And if Samuel could need him? He can feel his pupils widen and his hand finds his mouth. He puts the knuckle of his little finger in between his teeth, just to remind himself he’s real. He can feel his breath pass in and out, past his hand. It reminds him to breath slower. Slower.  
  
  Cobbs can still concentrate and remember the earliest moments, when Samuel hadn’t worked himself, both purposeful and accidental, so much into his mind. When the distance was greater.  
   “You’re a good connection to make.” Grant offers. It’s evening and the night is creeping in fast.  
  Pond finds the idea difficult to swallow. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. Grant knows what he’s known best for. “I would have thought men like you would have an interest in keeping themselves and their company far away from men like me.”  
  “Certainly men of lesser understanding,” Grant laughs, a short chuckle that’s somehow exactly enough. “But whatever the rest may see you as, I see a great amount of potential.”  
  “What kind of potential?” There’s something so civilizing about phrasing it that way. Pond can feel himself sitting up straighter.  
  “Business potential. You’ve already proven yourself to be quite the scourge to your enemies, and there’s not many men I know who could do what you have done.”  
  What a polite way of phrasing the very impolite way he’s been staking out his territory as of late. He nods a little.  
  “Just think of what you could do with some funding.” Grant smiles.  
  “You’re interested in me causing trouble for your competitors?” It almost makes him laugh- a lovely, petty scheme.  
  “Not exactly what I’d had in mind.” Samuel Grant stops for a moment and gives him a serious look. He’s gauging him up, reading what he can from his eyes and his body before he speaks. It’s a deliciously uncomfortable gaze to be on the receiving end of. It makes him shift a little.  
  “You’re not truly interested in trapping, are you?”  
  Ah, there’s the crux of it all.  
  
  It’s some time later, but Samuel goes looking for him when he is necessary. It feels good to be required, to be asked for. Requested. Samuel sits by the open fire and does not even flinch when he comes to sit, unannounced and unheard, by his side.  
  “How long would you have waited?”  
  “As long as it took.” Samuel says it with such chilling reassurance, polite but no less of a promise. A real Cobbs Pond kind of compliment.   
  He smiles, and Samuel Grant smiles right back.  
   The death of the fortune-hunter is a grievous mistake. Enjoyable to make, but all the worst ones are. When Samuel Grant falls ill, it is too sudden- dropping like a wounded bird for a single weak-kneed moment, Pond barely has a second to take him onto his arm. It shakes him to the core.  
   Samuel smiles through it all, in the gracious way a host may still smile even as his house is looted. It’s the empty eyes that scare him.  
   He tucks Samuel into bed himself, covering the man’s lightly trembling hands with sheets that are coarse but clean, insuring his feet are covered. He stokes the rising fire and prays Samuel will simply sweat it out.  
  When he doesn’t rise out of his sickly haze in a night, the terror finds him.  
  
  He does what he can. He does not think of what he should do- he is not in his right mind for that. He does not think of the rules of gentlemanly propriety he has learned from books or practice, of the manners which would likely put some form of distance between him and the man in his care. He sits for a minute, in a spindly wooden chair by the fire, his eyes on Samuel’s miserable form, and listens to that snake-like intuition, that hollow feeling in his gut. That which he has killed for- only for it and Samuel Grant. The animal in him softens. All elsewhere weakness means prey, and yet-  
  Samuel’s uneven breathing consumes his sense of decency.  
  The part of him all good manners are meant to cover spurs him on. The room is made clean and presentable. Samuel’s coat is locked neatly in the wardrobe, the effects and funds he finds tucked into the pockets spirited away to their rightful places- he only pauses for a fragile, sacred moment, haunted by a lingering respect for Samuel’s person, before searching to insure he overlooks nothing. He finds the locked drawer where Samuel has been storing his money and places the rest of it there, examining the room to find where the other odds and ends would sit. There’s something strangely satisfying to look around and think to himself where Samuel would want his things, when he awakes, and to move the puzzle pieces into place. To anticipate wants and needs and account for them. He tries not to focus on this distracting pleasure and instead absorb himself in concerns for Samuel’s health.  
  Warm food and clean water are sent up at his request, all the better not to leave Samuel’s side. He sits, still and quiet, as if he were back in the forest, as if his life depended on it. His tall knees tap at the wooden sides of Samuel’s bed from time to time in unharnessed eager anticipation. When his eyes open finally, Samuel looks to the soaked sheets stuck to his shirt and chest and tangled around his legs with a ragged kind of bemusement. How, even in his confined state, he can radiate such crippled refinement is a mystery. Cobbs Pond is a foolish creature- he takes one of Samuel’s hands into both of his own with giddy excitement, as if this were an long-awaited reunion, with sorrow in his eyes.  
      It takes him a moment to realize Samuel’s cold, numb hands likely cannot feel him, and the haze has not fully lifted from his vision. He watches Samuel’s pupils shrink and widen as they are finally able to focus in on his face.  
  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I didn’t think…” There’s so much to say Cobbs can nearly feel himself choke. He wishes he would- he knows why Samuel is like this. He remembers now, the story of the rock and the baby. Samuel looks up at him through blurry eyes and Cobbs feels something so strong it’s almost ugly move in him. He manages to give Samuel the kind of smile he’s been practicing since they met. “No matter. Just focus on getting well. It’s going to be alright, I promise.”  
  At this, Samuel’s eyelids flicker closed and stay that way with a kind of frail comfort. He awakes with a frightened start in less than an hour and lets Cobbs bring water to his lips.  
  
 When it is no longer a question of if Samuel Grant will stay in the land of the living, Cobbs watches him breath, watches his chest rise and fall in his sleep. He will be hard pressed to get rid of me, Cobbs thinks. But Samuel never tries. Samuel lets him read poetry to him while he’s awake to hear it as much as he ever did when he was so long asleep.  
  
  Samuel returns to him to tell him that Arthur Haynes has the company now. This is something of a relief- Cobbs can see it in his face, and he nods along with the news.  
  “One step closer.” Cobbs muses from his spot standing by the fireplace, his gaze running down the floorboards, absentminded. He can feel the smallest of grins flicker across his own face, unbidden. Samuel, as always, takes notice.  
   Samuel leans himself up onto his elbows, which bury themselves into the mattress, a finer one than made up his sickbed, in a finer room than the one he lay in for days. Money suits him- he knows exactly what to spend it on. He stares into Cobbs.  
  His gaze is demanding. Cobbs can only avoid meeting it for so long. A second, practiced smile comes across his lips, unintentionally, at his own wicked assumptions of blood to be paid. “If that is what you want.” He adds. He can feel his lips curl against his better judgement. He likes knowing Samuel will not mind.  
  But Samuel is not concerned with Arthur. He shrugs with beautiful ease. Cobbs laughs, but only lightly. It is as a good as a ‘perhaps’.  
"Do you think-" Samuel pauses for a moment. Corrects himself. "I suppose you think very highly of me, don't you."  
  Cobbs nods in the sudden breathless silence.  
  "You must, to be doing all this." Samuel looks around the room which, as has become natural to him, Cobbs has arranged to his tastes. His belongings are in order and all is right with the world.  
  Cobbs says nothing.  
  "What would you ask in return from me?" Samuel watches him openly now and his elbows dig into the feather mattress with a new intensity.  
  It's a terrible question, Cobbs thinks. It draws all the life out of him and brings on an unsteady stammer in his mind.  
  Samuel, looking cold and removed and good enough to paint, smiles a little. "Come now, be honest with me. We trust each other enough for that by now, and every man hungers for something. Are you looking for stability or funding, perhaps, Cobbs Pond?"  
  It's the bright, self-satisfied way Samuel pronounces his full name. It's like downing an entire bottle of champagne on an empty stomach. He knows what he's expected to say. Yes, I seek stability and to be linked to something larger than myself in this ever-changing violent world, yes, money and wealth is what I crave. But he can't lie to Samuel.  
  "I want..." He cannot fully phrase everything, he thinks, and presented with only a partial sentence to work from Samuel's grin fades into a look of nervous expectation. Cobbs wets his lips. In his mind is the image of door closing, closing right in his face.  
  "I can't promise you anything, but I will listen to what it is you want." Samuel flashes him the sort of smile he usually reserves for business partners. He is frightened now, and putting distance between them. Cobbs nods. Distance is helpful. It is enough to let him think clearly, even if only for a moment.  
  When the moment is passed, and Cobbs Pond finds himself kneeling at his bedside, he speaks, slow and anxious, like the boy who had never taken out a man's eye before, like the boy who trembled to think of love unrequited. "I don't want you to send me away."  
  A strange look crosses Samuel's face. "That is all?"  
  "I don't want to leave you."  
   The strange look only gets worse. Samuel stares down at him, and for the first time Cobbs considers the man whose coats he carries and whose protection he prizes might have feelings of his own concerning him that are not simply the pleasant reactions to charm or uneasy shades of revulsion, admiration, and terror.  
   He remembers, back in that lonesome camp, pulling Samuel from a nightmare, smelling sweat in the dark. The way Grant had let him keep his arms where they had naturally fallen, somewhere around his shoulders, until he caught his breath. He had been more concerned with avoiding whatever blows might come from a surprised and dazed man he had woken from a bad dream, or composing his excuses as to why or how he had done so. But even as a simple, shallow nod had banished him from Samuel's side, there had been no demands for explanations. He wondered why he had not considered this as anything of note sooner. He had been too busy savoring his triumph in private to think of outside implications.  
  That downriver journey, like a dream, in which Samuel had been so utterly kind to him with every compliment and soft reassurance- he had felt as though, for the first time, they were breathing the same air together, that the stuff in their lungs was the same. He had not stopped to wonder if, to Samuel Grant, there was any energy that leapt the gap to bridge their separation. Love was a sensation to be felt, not a thing to be returned.   
   Samuel looks down at him with a judicious and familiar air and Cobbs nearly suspects a kiss may happen. Instead, in regal fashion, Samuel's hand drifts to his upturned face. It lingers there, just over the skin, before resting down upon him, a decision that carries with it all the weight of a gavel. It shifts, a real, living, blood-filled thing, and Cobbs’s eyes shut closed automatically to better memorize the sensation. He breathes in deeply through his nose, drinking in the delicate and particular scent his skin carries. He cannot think to hide this. It is any wonder he can think at all.  
   The thumb of Samuel's hand comes to rest between his cheekbone and his lower eyelid. It exerts a teasing, tentative pressure. At this, he opens his eyes, as well as he can. Samuel is still looking down at him, only a curious kind of grin is forming. Cobbs can feel his own mouth echo. He knows what Samuel means.  
   “Cobbs,” He says calmly, like they were talking over drinks and he was simply pronouncing the weather. “Leaving is clearly out of the question.”  
   Without thinking, they laugh together.  
  
   The money means more time in town, less time in the woods. Cobbs trails just behind Samuel like a shadow with a smile of its own. They are seen in taverns together, but he is never introduced to Arthur Haynes.   
   One of the first things Samuel does when they make their way into a real town is buy him finer clothes. Cobbs has done the very best he can, but all things pale in comparison to what Samuel can buy him.  
   “You're my business associate, not some hired trapper.” He admonishes with a slight smile. Cobbs does not object.  
   There's a heady, obvious kind of pleasure Samuel takes in adorning himself and then Cobbs in suitable garments. He watches Cobbs carefully as he stares, not wide-eyed like a child would but deep in admiration, as silk and embroidered cloth are flashed before his eyes. What he now selects in front of Samuel from this fantastic dream of color and shape is important, Cobbs soon realizes. His choices matter. Samuel watches him as keenly as any hawk ever watched a rabbit- the hairs prickle on the back of his neck in that familiar, tell-tale way, not unenjoyable- and there's a genuine eagerness to hear what he thinks that is almost frightening. It startles him. He expected men to want to ally with him, make plans with him, even, but never actually listen to his opinions on any business venture, let alone on the color of a piece of velvet. Samuel cares. He cares what Cobbs thinks is the right thickness for a pair of gloves, the right weight in the soles for a boot to fit properly, the right cut in a pair of breeches. Stockings? Coat buttons? For Samuel Grant, in all things, nothing is too miniscule a detail to go overlooked. And he watches Cobbs's worn-smooth dangerous hands drift longingly and full of fear over variations on cloth and thread. Cobbs knows what he is watching for- to see, on top of all he is, if he is also a man of taste.  
   It makes him giggle a little, how frightened Samuel can make him over a visit to a tailors or a milliner. Deep, deep down, they are both frightfully silly boys.   
   He chooses a waistcoat in a pinkish hue. Samuel nods in an approving fashion as he turns before two steely gazes- Grant and the mirror. He's wanted something in exactly this color for so long. He's watched too many sunsets alone not to want to be one. The sky, painted with dusk, doesn't feel hunger or pain or lust, only personifies the best of each. He grins at himself in the mirror and recognizes the expression, all teeth.   
   “I think it brings out the color in my face, don't you?”  
   “Your lips especially.” Samuel nods, not another soul in sight and lost enough to forget to watch his tongue. “I always thought they were your finest feature.” He grins in an almost proud fashion.  
   Cobbs hopes the color finds his face. He hopes it shows. 

   They return, triumphant, to the suite that Samuel is renting in a nearby lodge to retire and bask in their own glory. Cobbs has his new wardrobe laid out for him in his room, piecemeal and radiant. He surveys the wreckage like it's the bloated wealth of a beached Spanish treasure galleon. He slides the waistcoat back over his shoulders and buttons it in deep  admiration. It's his. He owns this. Samuel’s delight at his possessive gaze shines bright, even when he isn't looking at him. Cobbs takes a moment to enjoy playing coy.   
   “All this finery- you almost make me think you were going to ask something very uncouth in exchange, Mr. Grant.”   
   “I can,” He clearly hasn't thought of this, but now he's leaning shallow hips against the wall and a smile plays around his lips. “If you'd like me to.”   
   “I thought once you'd fucked me you’d think I was dull.” A shy laugh.   
   “Gracious, Mr. Pond, whatever gave you that idea?” He raises a teasing eyebrow, as if they are still in business meetings instead of standing in his bedroom.   
   “I thought you'd think I was terribly troublesome to keep.”   
   “What- that you were some peculiar boy I was dragging along for the hell of it? Be reasonable.” He laughs, just enough. “It's a pleasure to keep your company, Cobbs.”    
   “I didn't think you were dragging me along for nothing.” He smiles. “I'm not worth the effort otherwise.”   
   “Quite the contrary.” Samuel smiles proudly and gestures to everything laid out before them. “I think you’re worth quite a lot of effort.”   
   They've been alone in the woods, but not like this. They've been alone in cheap tavern rooms in backwater forts, but not like this. Samuel keeps looking at him and it means something. He hadn't realized how afraid he'd been that, once wealth and civilization found them, Samuel would pass him over for one of the well-preened servants or soft-handed young men who asked so little of him in comparison, who didn't smile quite so wide at the thought of blood, who were easier to weald and maneuver. But here he was. Standing like that, as bold as day.    
   When their mouths find each other nothing feels like a fortuitous mistake anymore. He doesn't feel lucky, he doesn't taste good fortune. He tastes worth. It feels earned.   
   He moves to undo the top button of his waistcoat. Samuel smiles a clever, scolding smile.    
   “Leave it on.” He instructs. “There's not need for that. We ought to break your new things in.”   
   Cobbs Pond giggles.   
  
   Arthur threatens their livelihood. He's been withholding funds out of spite, and Samuel has made some ventures of his own on the side to make up for it. He allows Cobb's to accompany him in everything, and it has become simple- walking together, eating together, managing business by each-others sides. Samuel takes a private kind of pride in how Cobbs’s soft voice makes other men tremble in their boots. Cobb's can't help but admire the way Samuel can turn a phrase.    
   “You make the most unpleasant things sound like a walk through a rose garden.” He murmurs with a grin, just low enough for Samuel to hear, as a trader leaves with half the money he walked into their parlor with.   
   Samuel smiles. “It’s good to be partnered with someone who can tell the difference.”   
   “Not that I mind either.”   
   “Of course.”   
   But Arthur's small betrayals don't simply amount to money they must find elsewhere. Samuel sits awake at night, drumming his fingers against the wood of his desk in an impatient manner, alternatingly distraught and irate.    
   “I think of all I ever did and said for that man, and this is what I get.” He hands over to Cobbs a scrap of a letter that is more insult than greeting. The low light of evening makes it glow disturbingly in his hands, as though cursed by all the ill will it carries. “It makes me sick.”   
   “We don't need him anymore.” Cobb's sooths. He doesn't touch Samuel's shoulder the way he might if he were angry, but he knows enough that he can say 'we’ and not 'you’ with confidence. Samuel looks at him and almost smiles.   
   “It's not that. It's the principal of the thing. I was his friend.” He looks reproachfully down at his own hands. “In a way. A way that should have been respected a great deal more than this.”   
   “Will you meet with him?”   
   “We both will.” Samuel’s eyes are cold, and a shiver of excitement travels through Cobbs's involuntarily. “And if that doesn't work, you will.”    
  
Arthur is simple. It’s refreshing- how many times have things been so simple? The man was alone in the rain. Samuel Grant sleeps well, Cobbs sees to that. Samuel only turns and looks over his shoulder at him, curled up in bed when he strides into the suite, triumphant and glowing with adrenaline and love.   
He loves the easy, princely way Samuel comes to expect it in the years to come. To turn, to know he will be there, to know he will help. Dependable Pond. Always there when you need him. He's proud of what Samuel makes him into. He gives him honor.   
   And as their fortune grows when Samuel reaches out a hand he's glad it's him there to give to him whatever it is he requires. Not some servant. Him. No one is closer. No one is more trusted. Samuel lets no one else dress him and it's the sick satisfaction of jealousy that wells up in Cobbs's stomach.    
   Because he knows Samuel Grant's delightful little secret- the one those hooded, knowing eyes were hiding during those early days in the woods, the one that called to him. How and who he loves. How he expresses favor and desire.    
   He knows that, were he not here and not wanted and not loved, Samuel Grant would have the prettiest and kindest boy you ever saw holding his personal effects and opening doors. And you could bet, if the poor thing was willing, he'd be in his bed as well.    
   It's all a blend of intimate longing and careful lust, the kind that suits a man whose allies and enemies are too often the same people. Allow them close to your person in a show of personal trust the deepness of which they cannot begin to decipher, and gaze at them from the close proximity of an evening chair while they bend to your desires.   
  “Hopefully literally,” Cobbs grins, all vicious implication and teeth, and Samuel laughs.   
  “Ideally, of course.” Now they both can’t stop laughing.   
   For Cobbs Pond, they are all good memories.


End file.
